Kristian Garic

Brees: Huge victory, but still work to be done

by Kristian Garic,posted Sep 9 2013 9:44AM

Following the heart-pounding victory over the Falcons, I spoke with quarterback Drew Brees for our weekly “Monday Morning Quarterback” feature, which you can hear every Monday morning at 7:45 on Tommy Tucker’s show.

As you guys have talked about all week, a lot of these games against the Falcons seem to come down to a final possession.

Yea, theses seem to always end that way, 8 of the lass 11 have been down to the last possession of the game. Fortunately, we’ve been able to be on top of a lot of those. It’s been big plays, both offensively and defensively, HUGE defensive stops there, inside our own five. Can’t say enough about their effort all game long, just putting a lot of pressure on the quarterback, coming up with a couple of turnovers… man, a heckuva job.

Going into this game, knowing that most of the recent games vs. Atlanta have gone down to the wire, tell us about the formula to win… What does that do for the team’s confidence?

It’s tremendous. It’s tremendous because you know and trust the formula. There it is right in front of you, and it’s been a winning formula for us for a long time. We know what wins football games…the good teams do, the great teams do, and that’s what we’re trying to be.

It’s good to get this one under our belt. We have a lot of work to do. We’re going to turn on the film…and we’re going to see a lot of mistakes and things that need to be corrected. If we want to reach the level we thought we can be.

Do you feel like the offense left something on the field?

There’s no doubt. Any time you’re 1 of 3 in the red zone, that’s not what you want to be…we had some penalties, and some stuff happened that can’t happen. We’ve got to be more efficient there.

Yeah, that’s awesome, so well-deserved for Marques. This guy’s a true professional, and I’m so proud that he’s one of my guys. I have more trust and confidence in him than anyone, just the time we’ve had together…it’s unique when you get to be with a guy going on eight years now. Hopefully we’ve got a few more…man, it’s great. I’m so happy for him, it’s so well-deserved.

Even though it’s just one victory…talk a little about starting out the season with a win, that’s got to be huge for motivation.

It’s huge, it’s huge. What a big win…just, everything. The type of offseason we had, it’s been tough, it’s been grueling at times. In the end, we kind of gained that edge, preparing yourself to go out and have a great season. Obviously, this game’s been on the calendar for a long time, so we’ve had a lot of time to prepare for it, and they’ve had a lot of time to prepare for us. We knew the type of game it was going to be, we did the things that were necessary to win, and we got the W. All those things look good, but it’s the 24 hour rule…we enjoy it for 24 hours, and then move on to Tampa.

Looking ahead to Tampa, what are you expecting?

We’ve always kind of had a back and forth with Tampa. We’ve had some really good games over the past few years. Luckily, we were able to get them twice last year, but I think they’re significantly improved. They made a splash in free agency this year like they did the year before. I know they had a tough loss against the Jets, so I know they’re going to be chomping at the bit…it’s their home-opener, trying to make an impression. We’ve got to be sure we bring our best.